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Are we to think that a being knowing itself must contain
diversity, that self-knowledge can be affirmed only when some one
phase of the self perceives other phases, and that therefore an
absolutely simplex entity would be equally incapable of
introversion and of self-awareness?
No: a being that has no parts or phases may have this
consciousness; in fact there would be no real self-knowing in an
entity presented as knowing itself in virtue of being a compound-
some single element in it perceiving other elements- as we may
know our own form and entire bodily organism by sense-perception:
such knowing does not cover the whole field; the knowing element
has not had the required cognisance at once of its associates and
of itself; this is not the self-knower asked for; it is merely
something that knows something else.
Either we must exhibit the self-knowing of an uncompounded being-
and show how that is possible- or abandon the belief that any
being can possess veritable self-cognition.
To abandon the belief is not possible in view of the many
absurdities thus entailed.
It would be already absurd enough to deny this power to the soul
or mind, but the very height of absurdity to deny it to the
nature of the Intellectual-Principle, presented thus as knowing
the rest of things but not attaining to knowledge, or even
awareness, of itself.
It is the province of sense and in some degree of understanding
and judgement, but not of the Intellectual-Principle, to handle
the external, though whether the Intellectual-Principle holds the
knowledge of these things is a question to be examined, but it is
obvious that the Intellectual-Principle must have knowledge of
the Intellectual objects. Now, can it know those objects alone or
must it not simultaneously know itself, the being whose function
it is to know just those things? Can it have self-knowledge in
the sense [dismissed above as inadequate] of knowing its content
while it ignores itself? Can it be aware of knowing its members
and yet remain in ignorance of its own knowing self? Self and
content must be simultaneously present: the method and degree of
this knowledge we must now consider.
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